Looking back almost six years, it is sometimes hard to remember that the first few days following George Floyd’s murder, on May 25, 2020, were eerily quiet in Des Moines.
The first large protest was at the Des Moines police station on May 29, in the afternoon. The estimated turnout was over 1,000 people. The protest was non-violent, with the usual speeches and demands for change. There was no visible police presence and no violence that afternoon.
By the following evening, Saturday, May 30, this had all changed.
That evening, there were protests at the police station, vandalism in the East Village and an attack on the Polk County Courthouse. The story of the protests, beginning on May 30 and extending into the early morning hours of May 31 and later, was told in Volume 1 of the People’s History…